Jun. 2022 (Issue 145)

We’re serializing a very special novelette that straddles the boundaries of science fiction AND fantasy: “The Crowning of the Lord Tazenket, Vulture God of the Eye,” written by S.G. Demciri. We also have an SF story (“Zen Solaris and the GodChild”) by Arden Powell, a flash piece (“Scientists Confirm: There’s a Black Hole in the Center of Your Heart”) from Jo Miles, along with an SF reprint by C.C. Finlay (“One Basket”). Plus, we have an original fantasy short by P H Lee (“The Turnip, or, How The Whole World Was Brought to Peace”). We also have a flash piece (“Picnic, with Monster”) from Susan Palwick. Our fantasy reprint is by Stephen Graham Jones (“Broken Record”). All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with book reviews from our terrific review team. Our ebook readers will also enjoy an excerpt from Brian McClellan’s new novel In the Shadow of Lightning.

Cover art by Grandfailure / Dreamstime

Jun. 2022 (Issue 145)

Editorial

Editorial: June 2022

by John Joseph Adams

Be sure to check out the editorial for a rundown of this month’s terrific content!

Science Fiction

The Crowning of the Lord Tazenket, Vulture God of the Eye, Part I

by S.G. Demciri

Author spotlight

She dreams of blood. She always has done. Her gold gown drenched in it, the gold paint on her fingertips muddied by it. Her arms glow in the dream, a hundred paths of light trailing over her collarbones. In this dream, this vision, she is free. Her kind don’t really dream. They—she, she doesn’t think there are others—pull on the strings of fate. They look forward into the future and imagine possibility. She tells herself every time she dreams of blood and freedom: this is a dream.

Fantasy

Picnic, with Monster

by Susan Palwick

Freedom means walking through the park on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon, instead of being locked up in the hospital or a group home. Caleb was released from the hospital this morning, not because he’s well—he knows he’ll never be what the doctors call well—but because they had nothing left to offer him. He dutifully took their pills when he was locked up, because otherwise, they just get a court order to force you. No freedom in hospitals.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: S.G. Demciri

by Laurel Amberdine

Funnily enough this story started out as “Ariadne and Theseus in space”—at some point in the ideation stage it took a sharp left from its origin. I think if you squint you can still see bits of it, but Ihuet has a different fate and Tazenket is as different from Theseus as day is from night. But as my agent says, this is the ideal mechanic of inspiration. I never feel bound to where an idea comes from or what its first form is.

Science Fiction

One Basket

by C.C. Finlay

::if ur thirsty go get a drink:: Alaya glanced up from her chatscreen and across the small apartment to the blinking red light on the family water tap; they’d already used up their daily ration. She licked dry lips. Simone didn’t understand—she lived down in Grand Tunnel, where everyone got an extra liter of drinking water per day just because they were old families sitting on the biggest ice vein left in the asteroid. ::maybe ill just go swimming:: Alaya answered.

Fantasy

The Crowning of the Lord Tazenket, Vulture God of the Eye, Part II

by S.G. Demciri

Author spotlight

It is three days before she dreams a strange prophecy. The Daganites believe prophecy is shrouded in mystery. In truth, it is logical—bound by choice and statistics and a million small things they don’t pay attention to, but that gods do. Mortals love secret and ritual and when they come to her temple with their hundred small choices they don’t look at her. Eyes cast down, watering from the smoke, foreheads pressed to the ground.

Nonfiction

Book Review: Light From Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki

by Aigner Loren Wilson

This month, Aigner Loren Wilson reviews Light From Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki—a novel packed with starships, violins, and . . . donuts? Check out Aigner’s review and find out out why this book might be for you.

Science Fiction

Zen Solaris and the God-Child

by Arden Powell

Author spotlight

Zen shared his shoebox apartment with a girl named Ratter, who ate vision-pills for breakfast and tattooed her dreams on her skin. She had grown up in the Wastes and was missing her dominant arm from the elbow down. Versatile as flesh and blood, her tattoo gun was a whirring prosthetic she had built herself, configured to strap on at the shoulder. The needlepoint twitched like a fingertip, and she drew her designs with bold, exact marks.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: Arden Powell

by Laurel Amberdine

The initial aesthetic was inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road and Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, both colourful, post-apocalyptic dystopian stories. Ratter’s tattoo machine is based on the real-life prosthesis of tattoo artist JC Sheitan Tenet. The themes of gender and extinction come from my own anxieties about current events. I’m fascinated by the concept of human extinction.

Fantasy

Broken Record

by Stephen Graham Jones

What Jaden remembered of the wreck was screaming and water drops hanging in the air and the thin white mast at a diagonal and then breathing cold water deep into his chest, shrieky regret about too much stuff at once, and now he was here. A desert island. It was the kind people in single-panel cartoons are always living on. The only difference for Jaden was that there was no tall coconut tree drooping over him, casting a puddle of shadow for him to move with all day.

Nonfiction

Book Review: Monsters Born and Made, by Tanvi Berwah

by Chris Kluwe

Chris Kluwe dives into into the harsh world of Monsters Born and Made, by Tanvi Berwah—find out why he thinks you might love its dangerous, creature-filled oceans and complex characters.

Science Fiction

Scientists Confirm: There’s a Black Hole in the Center of Your Heart

by Jo Miles

The black hole in the center of your heart devours everything around you. It always has, but when you were small, your event horizon was, too: you might pull in a teddy bear, your corgi puppy’s love, your grandma’s snickerdoodles. Small fuel for a small hunger. But you didn’t stay small. In school, you pulled other children into your orbit, cool kids and nerds and loners, along with shelves of books, the faded basketballs from the gym, the classroom iguana.

Fantasy

The Turnip, or, How the Whole World Was Brought to Peace

by P H Lee

Author spotlight

I have heard it on the rumors that when the tale-spinner’s guild gathers in their secret places, a full half of them are sworn to never tell the truth, and the other half to never tell a lie, even if it mean their life. Being one of that trade myself, I can tell you that that’s more or less the shape of it, and I tell you so you know that this tale is true, just as it was told to me, for I am one of the ones sworn to the truth.

Author Spotlight

Author Spotlight: P H Lee

by Laurel Amberdine

The Turnip is a re-telling of a fairy tale by the same name, which for my money is the single strangest story in the entire Grimm canon. The original Turnip has always been a source of fascination to me, because it is so clearly parts of two different stories cobbled together, and because one of those is clearly drawing on ancient Germanic mythology (the whole hanging-upside-down-from-a-tree-for-wisdom bit).

Nonfiction

Book Review: Dreams for a Broken World, Day & Meeropol, editors

by Arley Sorg

If you’re looking for a new anthology, Arley Sorg says you ought to pick up Dreams for a Broken World, a new anthology edited by Julie C. Day and Ellen Meeropol.